The present invention relates to safety markers of the type used at highway construction sites, for warning vehicle drivers of obstructions, dangerous conditions, etc.
Many of the safety markers in common use are molded from brightly colored synthetic rubber or other plastic, in the form of elongate, truncated hollow cones having a relatively small opening at the top and an outwardly extending flange at the bottom. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,333,273 to Scanlon. These conventional marker cones are stackable for compact storage, and they can be delivered from a stack upright onto the ground from a moving vehicle; however, they are subject to being knocked over or blown over by high winds, and they are not self-righting. Also, they are undesirably heavy and bulky when made sufficiently large to be effective as a safety marker.
As a result of the above, a number of different marker configurations have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,386,409 to Dawson discloses a self-righting traffic cone having a hollow frusto-conical body and an outwardly and upwardly curved base rocker portion, the cone being self-righting and stackable. U.S. Pat. No. 2,275,711 to Ybanez discloses an axially collapsible cone that is pivotally connected and releasably latched to a platform base, a flag projecting upwardly from the cone. U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,334 to Beard discloses a traffic marker cone having a hangar for supporting an upwardly and outwardly projecting flag, the flag and the hangar being storable within the cone. None of the safety markers of the prior art is entirely satisfactory; for example:
1. The cone of Dawson can easily be blown partially over by the wind, being then subject to being rotated on its axis blown along for considerable distances out of position; PA1 2. The safety signal of Ybanez requires complicated manual operations for deployment and collapsing, and is not self-righting; and PA1 3. The marker of Beard suffers from the disadvantages of the device of Ybanez, and further that it is not stackable together with the hangar and flag.
Thus there is a need for a safety marker that is both stable and self-righting, having a large attention-commanding presence but a compact stackable configuration, and that can be easily deployed and stacked without manual assembly or disassembly.